Every year millions of small weights are attached to tires by automotive technicians balancing them. Tire balance, also referred to as tire unbalance or imbalance, describes the distribution of mass within an automobile tire and/or the wheel to which it is attached. When the tire rotates, asymmetries of mass cause the wheel to wobble. This wobbling can give rise to ride disturbances, usually vertical and lateral vibrations. It can also result in a wobbling of the steering. The ride disturbance due to unbalance usually increases with speed. Vehicle suspensions can be excited by tire unbalance forces when the speed of the wheel reaches a point that its rotating frequency equals the suspension's resonant frequency. Tires are inspected in factories and repair shops by two methods: static balancers and dynamic balancers. Tires with high unbalance forces are downgraded or rejected. When tires are fitted to wheels at the point of sale, they are measured again, and wheel weights, also known as correction weights, are applied to counteract the combined effect of the tire and wheel unbalance.
Automotive technicians reduce the wobble to an acceptable level when balancing the wheel by adding small wheel weights to the inner and outer wheel rims. A wheel weight is installed by the use of a wheel weight and/or clip that secures the wheel weight to the edge of the wheel. A common garage tool, like a hammer, is typically used to hammer the wheel weight and/or clip down onto the wheel. To remove the wheel weight and/or clip another common garage tool, similar to a pair of pliers or a screw driver, are typically used to grasp and pinch or pry the wheel weight and/or clip to remove the wheel weight.
Traditionally, wheel weights have been made of lead. However, to reduce environmental concerns, steel and zinc weights are being used more frequently. These steel and zinc weights are typically coated. The coated weights have a coating on them which have been discovered to chip or scratch during the installation or removal of the wheel weight by standard wheel weight tools. In addition to the problem with the wheel weight chipping or scratching during installation and removal, the actual wheels themselves (or coatings on the wheels) have been discovered to chip and or scratch around its edges during installation or removal of the wheel weight with standard wheel weight tools. As should be understood these chipped and/or scratched portions of the wheel and/or wheel weights are undesirable for vehicle owners.
It is thus highly desirable to create a wheel weight tool for installing and/or removing wheel weights that may be easier to use than common garage tools and may reduce or prevent chips and/or scratches on the wheel weight and/or wheel itself.
One problem with providing a wheel weight removal tool for removing wheel weights is that there are many different sizes and shapes of wheel weights. See the Wheel Weights Table at http://www.wheelweights.com/pdf/Wheel_Weights_CompleteWeightsChart.pdf [retrieved on Oct. 3, 2012]. The five major manufacturers that supply wheel weights in the US are IMI, Hennessy (BADA), JM Nault, Perfect Equipment, and Plumbco. Each manufacturer's weights may differ in where the hole is located on the “clip”, as well as the style and size of said hole. See http://www.wheelweights.com/pdf/Wheel_Weights_Flange_Chart.pdf [retrieved on Oct. 3, 2012].
Consequently, it has been discovered that the tire industry currently has many problems with wheel-weight removal due to the changes in design and material of wheel weights being produced, not to mention the number of different wheel weights on today's market. The tools used to remove wheel weights over the last 50 years have been mainly plier type removers and they are no longer sufficiently able to handle the challenges of removing all of the weights being sold and applied in today's market, including tires with curb rubber which adds additional challenges. This issue will only get worse with the current “phasing out” of lead weights, which will most likely be completely implemented throughout the U.S. in the near future. Additionally, rim damage due to the current tools scratching wheels and rims and the additional high cost of workman's comp claims filed due to injuries sustained by tire changer's (employee's) fingers and hands by using pliers type wheel weight removers.
As a result, there is clearly a need for a wheel weight removal tool that can accommodate many different size and shapes of wheel weights, including many different sized and shaped holes on the clips, that is fast and easy to operate, and reduces or eliminates scratching or pinching even on tires with curb rubber.
The instant invention is designed to address the above mentioned problems.